Leaving Berk
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: AU Disgruntled by the way he and the dragons are taught after a campaign of lies, Hiccup leaves Berk behind. Nothing has changed. The Hooligans are the same. Astrid still looks at him as though he is a nothing. His father doesn't want to know. He leaves to make his own way.


I don't own HTTYD, I just own a small patch where I can have fun with the plotlines.

A/N - It might be short, but I've always felt Hiccup was wasted on Berk, and besides this is the first in a long line of stories where Hiccup leaves.

* * *

Leaving Berk.

Creeping around Berk was not something difficult for Hiccup, and as he walked slowly around the village with Toothless behind him while they headed towards the cliff in order to begin.

"Not much further to go now, bud," Hiccup panted as they climbed up the hill to the cliff from which Toothless would take off from.

_I was so stupid to believe that things would change here, _Hiccup thought to himself, leaning on his Night Fury's flank for support while Toothless warbled at him worriedly, and the Night Fury deliberately moved slowly to help him adjust to the rougher terrain, for which Hiccup was genuinely thankful for; he'd gotten used to the prosthetic tail-fin over the last year after losing his good old flesh and blood limb that he'd been born with, but occasionally, especially when the weather was cold, he would suffer from aches which could be really painful, so he had to lean on his dragon for help.

Hiccup looked down the hill to where the rest of the village was lying. He could see that the place hadn't changed that much in all the time he had been here, even with the dragons who were now friendly, but unfortunately, thanks to Mildew and a fair number of the more traditionally minded Vikings, virtually all the dragons had been driven from the village.

At first, the exodus had been gradual, but now there were virtually no dragons anywhere near Berk, which was just as Mildew and his cronies liked it. One or two stayed, but the numbers of dragons actually being here had dropped to nothing. Hiccup wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the week the whole lot decided to leave Berk since they knew without him around to speak up for them, there was nobody else there to stop the mass exodus.

It had become so bad when Mildew had faked a dragon attack where the Nadders would attack a house with a child trapped inside, though Hiccup had never been able to prove the slimy old bastard had been behind the attack against a small child, though the Deadly Nadder spikes had resulted in even Stoick believing it as had the rest of the tribe enough though they should have known better, even over the pleas from his son, and he had very nearly killed the Nadders, but Hiccup had helped them to escape.

Now he was back to where he had been before he had stopped the Red Death.

Now he was back as the village pariah, someone to be mocked, abused.

And he had had enough.

He hated it here, and he wanted to get away from everyone and he hoped never to encounter or see them again, especially his worthless oaf of a father and Astrid.

Thinking about the blonde shield maiden hurt a lot more because Astrid had seen the real him, but he had no idea what had happened between the pair of them, and it hurt like hel. His relationship with Astrid had gone nowhere. After the novelty had worn off, she had begun treating him with the same cold detached attitude she had been treating him with since they had been younger, and that had hurt. She would help him with the dragons before the latest mess, but that was it. Truthfully Hiccup had no idea what was going through Astrid's head, it was hard for him to get into since Astrid's cold gaze was like looking into a block of ice. Hiccup honestly didn't understand what had gone wrong when everything had been going so well, but after a while, he had simply stopped caring.

If the prissy bitch wanted a "proper Viking" so be it.

But how in the name of Thor could she suddenly believe the Nadders, including her own, would suddenly burn down a house with a child inside it? It was crazy. None of it made a shred of sense.

But now the Nadders were gone thanks to him, as were the Terrible Terrors and the Monstrous Nightmares, and Barf and Belch had gone as well, which really upset the Thorston twins, but Hiccup didn't care what was going through their sorry excuses for brains.

It didn't help matters that his own father had slowly begun treating him like crap again after the battle with the Red Death when Hiccup had refused to do this and that when he had his own plans to make living with dragons more and easier for the Vikings. Unfortunately, Stoick hadn't seen it like that. He had seen it as plain disinterest, so he had great pleasure in shooting down Hiccup's ideas.

Hiccup rubbed his face unconsciously where his skin was bruised. He had been trying to persuade his boneheaded father in trying to see Mildew was lying about the Nadders, but the evidence was too strong for his father to ignore. Hiccup had argued back, getting into Stoick's face if the evidence was so strong then why was it no-one had heard a thing, and why all the Nadders had not been there, but Stoick had refused to listen, and when Hiccup had gone too far in the argument, his oaf of a father had smacked him in the face.

Stoick had then shouted he was a traitor for standing by the dragons instead of his own people, and soon Toothless himself would have to be careful, even if the Night Fury had done nothing.

_I'm a traitor, am I? _Hiccup had asked himself darkly as he had laid on the ground with a concussion. _I'm a traitor? You might have put a lot of effort into protecting this place, but did you lose a leg to end the war? No. I did. You haven't even begun to change, have you, Stoick!? You never even wanted to change, well now you will get your wish. You're still the same closed-off man I knew, and to think I had hoped things would be better between us. I guess I was always wrong. I know better now, you bastard. Now you will have what you wanted all along, me gone so you won't have any more reminders of mum. _

For three agonising days, Hiccup had been trying to organise his supplies in preparation to leave Berk for good. He had had enough of the place. He was being treated like a pariah, and all of his hard work in trying to integrate the dragons into Viking culture had died a painful, and unpleasant death.

It had taken him a while, but Hiccup finally saw for himself that despite all of his optimism, despite everything he had sacrificed for his tribe, he was still seen as a weakling nothing, something to be pitied now he was crippled. For the past few days, actually for the last few weeks since the dragons had begun leaving the island and fleeing to Thor alone knew where, everyone had been pelting him with stones and rotten fruit, so truthfully he felt like he was really home on Berk. It was worse now because of the prosthetic, which gave everyone fresh ammunition.

Gobber had more or less been on his side, knowing that he was upset but there was nothing he could do himself. What made it worse in the blacksmith's case was that Gobber had actually embraced the change as just one of those things, but truthfully Hiccup had no idea what Gobber made of what was going on on the island.

Hiccup sighed and he got on Toothless' back. He wanted nothing more to do with this island, with the rest of the archipelago. Now all he wanted was to leave this hostile part of the world and go off looking for something better than the Viking people.

"Goodbye, Berk!" Hiccup said before Toothless lifted off and carried them both off into the night where the dark sky swallowed them up.

* * *

Unbeknownst to Hiccup, several of the dragons who were still on the island overheard the call. They all recognised the voice as the human who was so different from the rest of the Vikings, the one who had been helping them and protecting them even if things had become virtually intolerable now. They had known he was planning on leaving the island and truthfully they didn't blame him. They were leaving all the time as things became more and more terrible for them.

The Vikings on the island were reverting back to their old practices, and none of them was safe from the villagers' wrath. More than one dragon had been attacked by Vikings armed with axes and hammers, so the dragons were leaving in droves as they were being threatened although they really did not want to hurt anybody, so they left.

But they had held on because of the boy who had killed the Queen. And now he was leaving for good. None of the dragons blamed him. They knew he had been suffering for a while. Unlike the Vikings, who mocked and deplored whatever they considered being cowardice, the dragons were capable of looking at things in a way the Vikings with all their narrow-minded stupidity could not. The dragons were both amazed and horrified with everything that had been happening on Berk. They had thought with the death of the Queen, things would be much much better, but they had been wrong.

Knowing that the only one in the tribe to truly help them was gone, the dragons immediately followed suit knowing they had no choice now. All their hopes for peace had gone with the boy.

What happened to the Vikings, the dragons didn't know and frankly did not care. In their minds, if they wanted to return to the old ways, they would find that it wouldn't be as easy as before to hunt and kill their kind without the Queen spurring them on. Dragons didn't need humans, after all. They were just sorry the boy's hopes for peace had disappeared because of the intolerance of others.

* * *

Meanwhile, Hiccup was thinking about the future ahead now he had left Berk as Toothless flew them over the sea. He had the whole world, and now he was putting the Hairy Hooligans out of his life, he could not help but think about what he was going to see. Whole new lands, animals, people.… dragon species he had never encountered before. As a child, he had always longed to explore the world beyond Berk. But as a child and the heir although everyone had lost faith over the years he would be a good one, just like his father, he had never gotten rid of his dreams to travel. Now he had the chance.

He had his dragon, and together who knew what they would find out there. He was free of Berk for good. When he thought about the Hairy Hooligan tribe, Hiccup dismissed them. They were not his tribe anymore, and he owed them nothing.

* * *

The next morning, Stoick took the letter Hiccup had left behind extremely badly. He had finally pushed his own son beyond the edge and now he was gone. The news of Hiccup leaving, or running away, depending on your point of view, affected Astrid pretty badly. The blonde shield maiden had been confused with her feelings for Hiccup for a long time, on the one hand being with him had been fun, but he was still pretty weak and the fact he couldn't take her blows had made her see he wasn't husband material. So she had pushed him away, and now she wished she hadn't because she realised she still loved him. And now he was gone.

Gobber, on the other hand, made sure Stoick understood that this had been coming for a long time. Hiccup had always been miserable on the island, and now with everything he had worked and succeeded at for the past year being torn away from him, they had no-one to blame but themselves. Hiccup was not going to come back. In fact, Gobber doubted they would ever find him; with all the dragons gone, and with a word from the other islands stating there had been no more dragons caught, the chances of finding him and making it up with him were gone.

Stoick fell into a terrible depression now his son was gone, even worse than the one he'd suffered when Valka had been snatched on that terrible night so long ago, the same night which still haunted him. What made it worse was he remembered what Hiccup had said about Mildew, and a quick search had yielded a number of dragon parts, claws from Nightmares and some saliva, Nadder spines, and scales from a Night Fury.

The discovery that his son had been right was like a blow to Stoick, especially since Hiccup had been punched by Stoick without thinking, but the deed was done, and with no dragons on the island now they were all gone and there was no sign of them in the skies, the Hairy Hooligan tribe had no option but to face up to the reality they had blamed and hounded the dragons and Hiccup out of Berk.

And there was nothing they could do about it.


End file.
